Albert Shinsky: The Man Who Killed the Witch of Ringtown Valley

The house in Ringtown Valley where Mrs. Mummey was killed

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On St. Patrick's Day of 1934, a 23-year-old taxi driver named Albert Shinsky murdered a woman near Ringtown, Schuylkill County. But this was not a cold-blooded killing; according to Shinsky, the reason he put a lead ball through the heart of Susan Mummey was because a Pennsylvania Dutch witch doctor had told him that it was the only way to remove the evil spell that Mrs. Mummey had placed on him. This is the tragic tale of Albert Shinsky and Susan Mummey-- a tale of murder, superstition, ghosts, and modern-era witchcraft in the Mahantango Mountains.

The Ringtown Valley is nestled between the rugged Blue Mountains, forming the line of division between Mahantango Mountain and Line Mountain. Since the days of Conrad Weiser and Chief Shikellamy, this has been the traditional border between the land of the Indians and the land of the white man, which is how Line Mountain got its name.

Into this white settlement came pioneers from all over Europe, including the Germans, who brought with them from the old world a curious slurry of peculiar customs and superstitions. Among these superstitions was the particular brand of black magic they called pow-wow, or hexerei. In the early days of Ringtown, hexerei took root, and it wasn't uncommon for Pennsylvania Dutch farmers to paint their barns with hex symbols-- colorful signs intended to ward off evil spirits and curses (or hexes), placed on them by witches.

One of these alleged witches was Susan Mummey, whose family had been feuding with the Lindermuth family since 1876 over a 119-acre parcel of land in the mountains. After a court battle that raged for decades, Judge Bechtel of Pottsville finally ruled in favor of the plaintiff, Steven G. Lindermuth, in 1925. Lindermuth, the newly-declared legal owner, immediately ordered Mummey's eviction. Police came from Shenandoah and disposed of Mrs. Mummey's furniture and changed the locks, but no sooner had they returned to Shenandoah did they discover that Mrs. Mummey and her daughter had already moved themselves back in. The eviction process was repeated two more times, but with the same results. Finally, the Lindermuths-- with the assistance of the fire marshal-- burned the Mummey home to the ground. Undaunted, Susan Mummey and her adopted daughter, Tavilla, returned to the property with a tent. When police confiscated the tent, the Mummeys returned to the property and built a shack. Police then raided and destroyed the shack, discovering an arsenal of guns and other weapons in the process. Yet they convinced the 64-year-old woman to move into a vacant house in Ferndale, on the lonely back road leading from Ringtown to Nuremberg.



The Killing of a Witch


The legend of Susan Mummey's black magic abilities dates back to 1910. Susan awoke one morning and told her husband that he shouldn't go to work that day, because she had a feeling he wouldn't return. And he never did-- Henry Mummey was blown to pieces in a explosion at the DuPont powder mill in Ferndale. And so, in a real-life Schuylkill County version of the Chicken Little fable, word spread throughout the valley that Susan Mummey had foretold her husband's death. From that day forward, the more superstitious residents came to regard the widow as a fortune-teller.

In the spring of 1934, Susan and her daughter supplemented their income by renting out a room in their house in Ferndale. By all accounts, rumors of witchcraft didn't prevent guests from boarding there; on the contrary, Mrs. Mummey was well-known for her home remedies and folk medicine cures. Around nine o'clock on the evening of Saturday, March 17, a boarder by the name of Jacob Rice was downstairs in the Mummey home having a sore on his foot treated by Susan when a gunshot shattered the window. Susan immediately slumped to the floor while Rice and Tavilla, fearing a second shot, crouched in the darkness. They were so shaken by the attack that they did not report the incident until morning.

When police arrived the following morning, they discovered that a large "pumpkin ball" slug (commonly used for hunting bear) had embedded itself in her stomach. Louis Buano, the Chief of County Detectives, surveyed the scene and discovered powder marks on the window sash, indicating the shot had been fired from close range. Before day's end police had set their sights on a suspect who had been a former neighbor.

Deputy Coroner U.S. Breisch put to rest rumors that Susan might have lived had Jacob Rice not waited until morning to call for aid-- the shot had pierced her lungs and heart before lodging in her stomach, killing her almost instantly. "I picked up her head and put it on my lap," Tavilla later testified. "While I held her head on my lap I talked to her. I felt blood in the dark, and knew mom was dead when she wouldn't answer me."

A private funeral was held at the victim's home, and Susan was buried at Ringtown Cemetery.

Albert Shinsky after his arrest in 1934

Shinsky Makes Confession


The suspect was arrested on March 24 and 24-year-old Albert Shinsky confessed to the crime while he was being held at the Tamaqua state police barracks. And considering the supernatural element, it was presumably the strangest murder confession in Schuylkill County history.

According to Shinsky, he shot the elderly woman in order break a nine-year spell he believed Mummey had cast on him. "I finally decided I had to kill her to break the hex," stated Shinsky. He confessed that, on the night of the murder, he drove from his home at 215 East Lloyd Street in Shenandoah and parked his car on a dirt road a half mile from Ringtown. Then he crept up to the house and watched Susan Mummey through a downstairs window.

Nine years earlier his family had lived next to the Mummeys. One day, Susan's cows escaped from her field and wound up on the Shinsky property. Susan, of course, blamed young Albert, who was just fifteen at the time, for stealing the cattle. The woman put a curse on him, he said, and he had been plagued with an endless string of bad luck ever since.



Hexed By Cats, Hears Voice From the Sky


"I heard a voice from the sky say 'shoot that woman' and I did," said Shinsky during his confession. "I was hexed. She sent black cats with burning eyes from the skies down at me. Black cats would come into my room and claw at my side. Once, one cat nearly suffocated me with its fur. I had to kill her to break the spell."

According to Shinsky, he had consulted a pow-wow doctor, who had told him that he could break the spell by saying "abracadabra" whenever the black cats visited him. And if that didn't work, well, he would have to resort to murder-- using a "magical bullet".

"The hex doctor told me I'd never be right till old Susie was killed by a magic bullet," he said. "I've tried ever since to get strength enough to do it and I made the bullet myself."

"Susie was in cahoots with the devil," he continued. "I was outside her house fighting those spirits for half an hour. But finally I overcame her spell, then I let her have it. After I fired the shot I felt sore all over. It seemed as if something was leaving my body... I hard a hard time walking a mile to where my car was parked but I knew the hex was leaving my body and I was glad. Just before I got into the car I shook all over. Then I felt grand. It was wonderful to feel so grand!"

As wild as the accused killer's story may have been, there was no doubt that he had pulled the trigger. Four people identified his car near the crime scene, and state troopers found Shinsky's shotgun in the woods near the Weston Place baseball field where he told them he had hidden it. Shinsky was  charged with murder before Justice of the Peace M.F. Giblon and transported to the county prison in Pottsville to await trial.


D.A. Seeks Death Penalty, Sweetheart Tells Ghost Story


In spite of the fantastic delusions suffered by the killer, District Attorney Leroy Enterline said that he would seek a first-degree murder verdict in court. "So far as we are concerned, Yashinsky will be tried as a sane man," stated Enterline, adding that he would demand the electric chair. (It should be pointed out that both Albert and his brother used the Americanized surname 'Shinsky', unlike their Lithuanian parents, who preferred Yashinsky).

Dr. Walter G. Bowers of the Schuylkill County Hospital for Mental Disease, however, was convinced that the young man's delusions were an irrefutable sign of insanity. After examining the murderer, Bowers called for a sanity commission to formally rule on Shinsky's mental state. If the commission determined he was insane, he would be committed to the Farview Hospital in Waymart. If and when he were to ever have his sanity restored, he would then be brought back to Pottsville to stand trial. Dr. Bowers also pointed out that mental illness was hereditary in the killer's family; Albert's brother had been committed to an asylum several years earlier.

When questioned by reporters about the possibility, Shinsky laughed. He thought the idea of his being declared insane was ridiculous. He said he was as normal as anyone else, now that his actions have liberated him from Mrs. Mummey's hex. Even Albert's sweetheart, Selina Bernstel, vouched for his sanity.

Albert Shinsky had planned to marry Selina Bernstel on Easter Sunday. Although their wedding plans were derailed by the murder, Selina frequently visited her lover in the Pottsville jail, and she, too, corroborated Shinsky's claims of supernatural activity. There were nights, Selina said, when the ghost of Susan Mummey, draped in a black robe, would appear at the foot of her bed. Selina was so convinced that Albert was telling the truth that she insisted upon getting married at the jail, but Albert refused.

Selina visits Albert at the jail in Pottsville

Another person who believed that Albert Shinsky was perfectly sane was the prison warden, William Watson. As warden, Watson had the authority to form a lunacy commission, but he refused at first. Finally, bowing to public pressure, Watson and District Attorney Enterline presented a petition to Judge Henry Houck on March 28 requesting the appointment of a lunacy commission. Judge Houck approved the request.

On April 12, Judge Houck received the report of the lunacy commission, which found that Albert Shinsky had been declared insane by the two doctors who had examined him. Judge Houck handed down an order directing the transfer of the killer from prison to the state asylum at Farview, where he would remain until such time as he regained his sanity. If that day should ever come, Shinsky would then be tried for murder. Two weeks later he was committed to the Farview mental asylum in Wayne County.

Farview state Hospital, Wayne County

Shinsky Seeks His Freedom


In July of 1947, after spending more than a decade at Farview, Albert Shinsky appeared ready to leave the asylum, believing that he was fully cured. His attorney, James J. Gallagher of Mahanoy City, filed a court petition in Pottsville seeking the release of his client. A hearing was set for September 15, but was postponed. The following month, the petition was denied after doctors at the asylum opposed Shinsky's release.

Another petition for Shinsky's release was presented to the court in 1962. Dr. John Shovlin, superintendent of the Farview State Hospital, opposed the petition, claiming that the killer, was not mentally stable and required further treatment. Judge Vincent J. Dalton, however, granted Shinsky's lawyer request to have an independent psychiatrist evaluate the killer's mental condition. It was eventually concluded that Shinsky was still insane and he was returned to the asylum.

A middle-aged Albert Shinsky led into court by Deputy Sheriff Adam Heinback in 1962

Witch Killer Gets His Day in Court


In January of 1976, Albert Shinsky, now 62, strode out of the dusty pages of Schuylkill County history onto the front pages of newspapers when President Judge James J. Curran ordered that Shinsky was now well enough to stand trial for the 1934 murder of Susan Mummey. Shinsky was transferred to Wernersville State Hospital to await trial.

Shinsky's long wait ended at the Schuylkill County Courthouse in March with a lot less fanfare than it began. Sitting motionless alongside his attorney, Jeffrey Matzkin, Shinsky listened as Judge Curran granted a nol prosse motion by District Attorney Richard Russell-- since all of the principal witnesses in the case were now dead, Albert Shinsky would not be prosecuted for the murder. After 42 years of confinement, the man who killed the witch of Ringtown Valley was now a free man.

Unfortunately, Shinsky's freedom was short-lived. Although he was judged mentally fit, his physical health began to decline. In February of 1983 he was admitted to a nursing home in Shenandoah, and died three months later. He was buried at Our Lady of Fatima Cemetery in Shenandoah Heights. As for Selina Bernstel, the killer's fiance, she eventually married Charles Betterton and moved to Bucks County.




Sources:

Pottsville Republican and Herald, Nov. 27, 1925.
Mount Carmel Item, March 19, 1934.
Pottsville Republican and Herald, March 19, 1934.
Pottsville Republican and Herald, March 20, 1934.
Pottsville Republican and Herald, March 22, 1934.
Pottsville Republican and Herald, March 23, 1934.
Shamokin News-Dispatch, March 22, 1934.
Harrisburg Sunday Courier, March 25, 1934.
Lebanon Daily News, March 26, 1934.
Pottsville Republican and Herald, March 26, 1934.
Pottsville Republican and Herald, March 28, 1934.
Pottsville Republican and Herald, April 12, 1934.
Shamokin News-Dispatch, Feb. 17, 1937.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Feb. 4, 1942.
Pottsville Republican and Herald, July 19, 1947.
Pottsville Republican and Herald, Oct. 16, 1962.
Pottsville Republican, Jan. 9, 1976.
Hazleton Standard-Speaker, March 11, 1976.
Pottsville Republican, Feb. 17, 1983.